As of the date of invention, it is estimated that diabetes care costs in excess of $218 billion in the U.S. The $218 billion amounts to about 10 percent of all U.S. health care spending by government and the public, about $2.1 trillion in 2006, and nearly half the $448.5 billion cost of heart disease and stroke. Diabetes mellitus, or diabetes as it is commonly known, includes several different metabolic disorders that result in high concentrations of glucose, a sugar, in the blood. It is currently estimated that diabetes care costs in excess of $240 billion in the U.S every year alone. This $240 billion figure amounts to about 10% of all U.S. health care spending.
In order to help treat the diabetes, a person may be prescribed diet changes, medications, insulin. However, a person must still be cognizant of their blood glucose levels to prevent a drop or spike in blood glucose levels which may lead to various ailments including, in severe cases, coma and death. Thus, diabetic persons should monitor their blood glucose levels with the aid of a glucose meter. Optimal measurement involves a patient measuring and recording their blood glucose levels over a period of time and in relation to certain events (i.e. eating and exercise). By understanding what effects food and exercise have on their blood glucose levels, appropriate lifestyle shifts can be made.
However, current blood glucose meters have several drawbacks. For example, blood glucose meters often lack the ability to communicate with another remote location such as a doctor's office. Thus, in order to a doctor to be kept apprised of a diabetic's situation, they have to assume the diabetic patient is testing themselves regularly and being truthful in their test results.
Thus, there is a need for a blood glucose meter that can automatically send test results to a remote location for instant analysis. This allows, for example, an alert or notification to be generated and sent to family members if a person's blood glucose level is such that it may signify that are in or about to be in danger of becoming hypoglycemic or hyperglycemic. The present invention meets and exceeds these objectives.
Examples of related art are described below:
U.S. Patent Publication No. 20100240979 discloses a system and method for transmitting blood glucose level information related to time and date from a user via a glucometer using the Global System for Mobile Communications (hereinafter GSM) modem, an antenna, meter interface, and microprocessor. U.S. Pat. No. 8,372,351 discloses a glucose monitoring with wireless communication and pairing capabilities via Bluetooth. U.S. Patent Publication No. 20130112557 discloses a glucose monitor with a temperature sensor to mitigate the effects of heat on a blood sample. U.S. Patent No. 20100228111 teaches a blood glucose measuring module and a wireless communication module which are physically-separate units electrically connected in order to allow for an exchange of electrical signals. U.S. Patent Publication No. 20080269673 teaches a cellular enable medical monitoring and infusion system paired with an infusion pump. U.S. Patent Publication No. 20050038680 teaches a cellular enabled medical infusion device for inputting medical data via a cellular network. U.S. Pat. No. 8,965,333 teaches a remote monitoring system and method utilizing wireless network of a plurality of contiguous decoded data packages. U.S. Patent Application 2013/0116526 pertains to a patient monitoring network pertaining to blood glucose and other analyte measurements includes wireless blood glucose or other analyte measuring devices and a networked computer or server. Each monitoring device is associated with a patient and is configured to measure the glucose level or other analyte from a given blood sample via inserted test strips, transmit the measurements to the networked computer, and display received messages. The messages may relate to the current or past measurements, or may include an alert prompting the user of the monitoring device to order more supplies, such as test strips. The measurements received by the networked computer may be stored in a record of a database, which may be accessed by a remote computer. The remote computer may also access a script editor to edit certain scripts which produce certain messages sent to the monitoring device.
International Patent Publication No. WO2012066278A1 teaches a server-side initiated communication unrelated to glucose monitoring. International Patent Publication No. WO2012126800A1 teaches calculating a dose of insulin based on information being transmitted from a meter the focus of the patent is on the dosing of insulin and discusses getting data via wireless communication. Chinese Patent No. CN204116356U simply discloses a SIM Card based Glucose meter and pertains to a SIM card based medical meter. The device includes a glucose meter, SIM cards, and test strips. The SIM card contains five modules, namely communications (CPU), working memory (RAM), program memory (FLASH ROM), EEPROM data memory and serial communication unit with the CPU. The SIM card is inserted into the meter installed SIM card slot, the test strips into the blood glucose meter test strips slot. The Sim card is read and stored in the EEPROM module. The blood glucose meter reads the test strip in contact with the test sample, the meter reads the data and stores it in the SIM card. Chinese Patent No. CN102835960 entitled “Portable intelligent glucometer supporting measured data to be real timely sent through mobile short messages” only discloses short message service (SMS) via GSM. Chinese Patent No. CN103472010A teaches a diabetes detection device using a user's blood and urine. Chinese Patent No. CN103330567A discloses a GPRS glucometer with identification function but focuses on RFID. Various devices are known in the art. However, their structure and means of operation are substantially different from the present invention. Accordingly, there is a need for a device to assist the diabetic community transmit and receive blood glucose readings in an efficient and most reliable manner. At least one embodiment of this invention is presented in the drawings below and will be described in more detail herein.